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User blog:Drakejp/Being a CIR in Tokyo
Hello everyone! My name is Joe Drake and I am currently working as a CIR at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) Bureau of Environment. I was invited by one of my fellow TMG CIRs to write about what it’s like being a CIR in Tokyo, so I’d like to share some of my experiences with you all! About Me/Before JET Before I get into the details of what I do at work, I’ll share a little about myself. I’m from New York, and was born in Saranac Lake, a small town in the Adirondacks. I moved to Albany, the capital, when I was 6, and lived there until going to college, and one year after graduating. I went to college at the State University of New York at New Paltz (SUNY New Paltz) where I majored in Asian Studies and International Relations, and minored in Philosophy. For my junior year, I studied abroad at Kanazawa University, where I took mostly Japanese language courses, and even did some independent research in Japanese! I’ve had an interest in Japan and Japanese since I was very young, and I had always head about the JET Program being a great opportunity for people who want to live or work in Japan to get their foot in the door. I started teaching myself Japanese in high school, and after another 4 years of learning the language in college and passing JLPT N1, I realized that applying for the CIR position would be the perfect opportunity for me to put everything that I had learned to use. I applied for the position in my last semester of college, and here I am less than a year later working in Tokyo! What’s the Job Like? Before becoming a CIR, I had only worked in food service or retail, and had never worked an office job. I was kind of nervous about having to dress up every day (which is something I haven’t had to do since middle school) and work in a business environment, but when I got to the Bureau of Environment I found that everyone is super friendly, and almost right away most of my worries about working here went away. Of course, it’s still a new environment and there are some things that I am still getting used to, but I feel very comfortable here even after just a few months. For many, if not most, CIRs, main duties include translating and interpreting, and my situation is no different! Over the past few months I’ve had the opportunity to do interpreting for things like a BBC interview, as well as a workshop held at TMG where representatives from cities all across the world came to Tokyo came to discuss solution to waste management problems. However, on most days I don’t participate in big events like these. One of my main responsibilities is collecting information on what other countries and cities are doing in regards to things like climate change and natural conservation. Because a lot of these resources are written in English, my job is to summarize them in Japanese! I actually really enjoy this part of my job, because it gives me the opportunity to write in Japanese, which I think is a really great way to stay on top of my language skills (I have noticed though, that sometimes I forget the English words for things, even if I know the Japanese). One thing that can be difficult about it though, is that I never really studied much about the environment in school or when studying Japanese, so there are a lot of technical terms that I don’t know. Recently, I’ve finally started to have a little more control over them, but there’s still so much that I have to learn. I have also had the opportunity to work with Tokyo Governor Koike! Well, I say work together, but it was mainly me just doing a bunch of preparation for a video message and then pressing one button on a computer when she showed up. I never would have thought that within two months of starting this job that I would have the opportunity to work with such an influential person! Another one of my responsibilities is running the English social media sites for the Bureau of Environment, so I think this is where I throw in a plug! We currently have a Facebook page and recently started a Twitter as well! Here, we post all about Tokyo’s environmental policies such as conservation, energy efficiency, air pollution, and waste management, as well as what the city is doing to combat climate change. Tokyo is taking some ambitious steps, and you should definitely give us a follow if you are interested in staying up to date on what this amazing city is doing for the future! Our Facebook is: http://facebook.com/Environment.TMG Our Twitter is: @Environment_TMG You can also check out all about the Bureau of Environment at: http://www.kankyo.metro.tokyo.jp/en/index.html We started our Twitter page only a few weeks ago, and we are trying to build a following, so if you know anyone inside or outside of Japan that may be interested in what we are doing let them know about us! (I haven’t personally used Twitter myself, and sometimes I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing with it, so I appreciate all the help I can get! (*^^)y All in all, I really love my job here at the Bureau of Environment. At my previous jobs I felt like I wasn’t able to use everything that I dedicated so much time to in college, and know I’m able to use it to the fullest. I know that I can’t work this job forever, but I think that it will be a great experience whatever I decide to do in the future! Category:Blog posts